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Pay one month's bill in advance:PTCL tells exporters PTCL official

hears cloth merchants' complaints

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Pakistan Telecommunications Company Ltd. (PTCL) has advised exporters to avail of the facility of advance payment by depositing one month average bill amount to avoid the risk of abrupt disconnection of telephones.

The offer was made by Wasim Ahmed, Director Customer Service of PTCL at a meeting with Iqbal Mangrani, Chairman and managing committee members of the Pakistan Cloth Merchants Association (PCMA) held at the PCMA office on Tuesday.

Responding to the complaints of the PCMA members regarding the telephone service, Wasim Ahmed said that if bills were not paid in time, phones were automatically disconnected. He, however, assured the PCMA members that phones could be restored immediately if paid bills copy was provided to the concerned telephone exchange.

About new phone connections, the PTCL director said that a demand note would be issued within 10 days of the receipt of application and the new phone would be installed in one week after the payment of demand note.

Earlier, welcoming the PTCL director, Iqbal Mangrani apprised him of the number of complaints about the telephone department which included one way working of telephones and 24 hour notice before disconnection in case of delayed payment of bills and immediate restoration of phones after the receipt of paid copy of the bill on fax.

Mangrani said that charges for domestic outstation calls were very high though overseas calls to the Far East were cheaper. He suggested that there should be a Beep sound after every four minutes of a local call so that the caller should be careful about the length of the conversation. He said that the PTCL had promised this at the time of its inception of the new call structure.